Vodafone Smart ultra 6 Owners Thread- apps, tips & tricks

clickhere wrote: »

If you swipe down twice from top of screen you can see your battery percentage.

True, but with that app, no need to swipe!

has anyone seen the soft gel cases for sale in Ireland for the smart ultra 6 ? seen plenty on ebay for very cheap but they are all located in UK - think I saw one on one irish website but whereas the ebay ones are around £3 the irish ones wanted €15 euro for one!

clickhere wrote: »

If you swipe down twice from top of screen you can see your battery percentage.

Try that gesture with a two finger swipe. It'll save you having to swipe twice.

Well I've had mine a few days now:

Im happy with the camera - takes lovely sharp clear bright pictures. The built in stock camera app is very good with loads of manual features that I would wonder if you could even get on a high end phone let alone a budget handset. - I personally have installed another camera app called camerafv5 from the market because Im used to using that and I like it. even though the camera takes up to 13mpixel photos, I have chosen 10mpixel because 13mpixel is 4:3 and i like widescreen (especially for landscape pics) and we have slow upload on broadband so 10mpixel uploads a bit quicker, and I very rarely print my phone camera photos so 10megapixel resolution is enough or more than enough for my particular needs.

Sound: my particular experience is that the speaker volume (for the speaker at the back of the phone is too low in my opinion for ringtones notifications etc, and I would have liked it whereby that you could select one or 2 more levels even if it meant a bit of distortion.

The earpiece: - well I got a call the other day and the other person sounded like they were talking with a sock stuffed in their mouth - it was by no way clear and when checking my voicemail it was muffled, maybe coming from samsung phone where in the settings it had something in the settings for clearer call maybe thats what I was used to - dont seem like there is any settings on this ultra 6 to make phone call quality clearer.

The colour of the screen - lovely colours, I like the colours on the screen, my wife reckons they are a bit too punchy and bold. On my samsung it had some kind of dnie setting or something for the screen colours, you could choose automatic to match picture/image or choose bold, natural or movie colour settings. I havent found any settings like that on the ultra 6 yet. Maybe it was just a thing built into the samsung touchwiz system only.

Battery: I have found the battery to last really good - i am no heavy user by any use but i can get to end of day and still have 20% left whereas my previous samsung would have run out much earlier even with battery saver installed and things like bluetooth and 3g turned off and brightness down - so yeah I am really impressed with battery life so far.

Charging LED light (blue circle on home 'button') : - I am being picky here and its only my personal preference, this will not be an issue with most people because it works absolutely fine - but I would rather as you are charging up the phone:

Notification LED (blue circle on home 'button') :
As for the home button, my samsung had a 'real' Home button and soft back and menu button - I think at the moment I prefer the 'soft' button on the Ultra 6 better - strangely my samsung buttons were in different place to this ultra 6 so on the samsung the 'back' button was on the right hand side of the phone and on the ultra 6 (and on many other phones) the back button is on the right hand bottom left of the phone so this is something I am particuarly having trouble getting used to, but I will get used to it in time I suppose.

Talking of navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen, my previous samsung phone had a 'menu' button on the bottom left on the row, so it was Menu - Home - Back on the ULTRA 6 it seems to be 'Back - Home - Recents soft buttons ... but no 'Menu' button?!? .. - most applications on the phone have a '3 dot' menu button at the top right of the screen to activate a menu which it is fine if it has but I have a couple of android apps that dont have the 3 dot menu at the top of the screen so I am not quite sure how I can activate the menu if there is no menu key at the bottom row of navigation buttons on the ULTRA 6 ? - also on the samsung you had the menu key on the right and a long press on the middle 'Home' button brought up 'recent apps' or 'task manager'

Other Buttons: - not mad keen at the moment with the power button and the volume keys being on the same side (right hand side of the phone) I personally would prefer power key on right hand side and volume keys on left or volume keys on right and power key on top of phone or left hand side of phone, but again thats my personal preference and I keep pressing the volume key thinking its the power key most times to put it into standby (ie turn the screen on or off)

SD Card insertion - personally I dont like to have a 'tool' or paper clip at hand to actually remove the SD card from the phone - but at least you dont have to shut down phone and remove battery just to remove or replace SD card like you have to with some phones on the market.

Sim card - they could have easily made this phone use a micro SIM card instead of a Nano one - the night I got my phone I had to put my sim in from my samsung which was a micro sim and nowhere was open so I had to hack my card with a pair of scissors to fit the sim into the ULTRA 6 and it also means now if something happens to the ULTRA 6 and I want to go back to using the SIM back into my samsung phone now Im snookered! - diddums eh?

Battery: - personally I dont like phones where you cannot take the back off easily and remove the battery, especially as in the past my mobile phones have locked up and I have had to take the back off me phone wait for a few seconds and put battery back in to get working again, what am I supposed to do if it freezes and even a long press on the power button dont work - just wait for it to die down over a couple of days?

Vodafone Update: - yep one came through yesterday on my phone it said VDF-995NB01-IE_MR01d ... whatever that is? - no indication of what it fixes or enhances on restart it all looks and feels the same to me. Maybe it was sorting some bugs I dont even know about.

Software:
I do like fiddling when I get my phones its part of the fun isnt it, customising it just the way you like it and doing things it werent designed to do 'out of the box' - well a couple of times on my samsung I have mucked things up and I have had to re-flash the ROM, no problem with the samsung phones - I just do a combination of power and volume keypress as phone starts and im easily into download mode then put ODIN flasher and then plethora of different samsung roms available on the Internet and Cyanogen Mod roms (which I love ) so I am just wondering at the moment how I would get on with this ULTRA 6 should I need to have to re-install the ROM at any time after mucking it up and if a factory reset dont cure it. I havent looked yet but I am presuming there is not as many vodafone ROM's available to download as there was samsung, and I suppose I cannot install cyanogen mod 12 or whatever on this ... I dunno maybe I can.

Anyway bottom line is that I think the phone is fantastic for the price and I am more than happy with it - when I think in the past how much I have paid in the past and they have been no-where near having a camera quality like this and the speed of an 8core processor and the other features that the Smart Ultra 6 - My daughter last month saved up a huge amount of money and bought a One-Plus_ONE because all her mates were raving about it, I think she paid 269euro for it, Ive had a play with hers, its nice but ... well to be honest I like my Vodafone Smart ULTRA 6 better to be honest and the Vodafone Ultra was only 170euro compared to her phone .

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

Have you any black one?

Nope, just this one.

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

I tried to root my phone last night - sweating all the time hoping that I didnt soft or hard brick it! - anyway tried KingRoot apk file and that didnt work, then hooked it up to Laptop and used KingRoot exe app (in chinese it was) but it actually rooted the phone ..... however when I reboot it looses the root as if its only a temporary root not a 'full root' - then tried kingoroot and failed and that said phone was not supported, then Cydia impactor which just stalled at 'testing' and wouldnt go any further. So im still not properly rooted.

Why not just use wondershare mobilego?

FrostyJim wrote: »

Why not just use wondershare mobilego?

Never heard of that til now. Thanks I will give it a go later on this evening

Vote 4 Pedro wrote: »

I have the pack of 10, all colours available @ €5 each posted

Have you a pink one?

I picked this up on Saturday. Very pleased with it. As others have said, in hand it's a bit slippy and it's so light that it feels like a cheap phone, but the performance is amazing. Really liking the stock android too. I have a Nexus tablet, so I've always preferred the vanilla experience.

What I really liked was the Tap & Go option in the set up. Means there was no farting around looking for wifi settings, finding apps or anything else. Brilliant. I know that's not unique to this phone but it's the first time I've used it.

The biggest leap ahead of the LG G2 is the call quality.

Camera is good, nice sharp pictures on Sunday in overcast conditions, so happy enough with that. I find it focuses much faster than the G2 too.

I bought the VF branded wallet style cover in the Vodafone shop for €25 and it's just awful. Feels cheap and nasty, doesn't act as a stand or anything. I've had better covers from Amazon for a lot less money.

Are there any bricks and mortar shops in Dublin (pref D2) selling skins for it? Or even a better standard of wallet type cover? Going away on Friday and would prefer to have a skin type cover on it instead of the one I bought!

I just ordered this on Sunday evening and am waiting on it to be delivered today.

Battery: - personally I dont like phones where you cannot take the back off easily and remove the battery, especially as in the past my mobile phones have locked up and I have had to take the back off me phone wait for a few seconds and put battery back in to get working again, what am I supposed to do if it freezes and even a long press on the power button dont work - just wait for it to die down over a couple of days?

In regards the battery issue above I had something similar happen on my old Xperia T and whenever I popped out the sim card it used to start into a reboot cycle. Not sure if this will also work with the VSU6 aswell?

Software:
I havent looked yet but I am presuming there is not as many vodafone ROM's available to download as there was samsung, and I suppose I cannot install cyanogen mod 12 or whatever on this ... I dunno maybe I can.

I read somewhere yesterday that some guys on XDA have got this booting into a different rom so some progress has been made there but could be a while yet before CM12 or so is available for it.

otterj wrote: »

How do you automatically download apps to the sd card? also how do you sort apps by most used instead of alphabetically?

You can't store apps on a card. You can keep other things on it though. ~8 GB should be plenty for apps.

Drag most used apps on the home screen. Make folders if you want.

GvidoR wrote: »

You can't store apps on a card. You can keep other things on it though. ~8 GB should be plenty for apps.

Drag most used apps on the home screen. Make folders if you want.

Ive every one of my apps accept facebook on my SD Card.

GvidoR wrote: »

Hmm, I was told you can't. Does it affect performance?

Either way, I'd rather keep the apps on the phone. There's plenty of storage space.

Probably not on this phone due to the larger internal storage.

I did on my Motorola though, moving them help improve performance.

The only apps that I couldnt move were facebook and kodi.

Strange how the battery percentage nicely appears on the top while plugged in but it can't be enabled anywhere in the settings to stay there.

otterj wrote: »

How do you automatically download apps to the sd card? also how do you sort apps by most used instead of alphabetically?

to be honest every time I want to install an app i get a 'nag' box of 'where do you want to download this app to' - wish it could be turned off to be honest, never had the question come up on any other phone I have had. -

Eponymous wrote: »

I

I bought the VF branded wallet style cover in the Vodafone shop for €25 and it's just awful. Feels cheap and nasty, doesn't act as a stand or anything. I've had better covers from Amazon for a lot less money.

Sligo store where I bought mine from had the VF cover for it for 19.99 - was tempted to buy it but didnt, thanks for the heads up, wont bother if its rubbish then

bidiots wrote: »

Andy, might be worthwhile starting a thread in the Android section, you're owning this one;)

oops sorry! - I will back off and let someone else have a go

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

oops sorry! - I will back off and let someone else have a go

Not giving out, just think you might get some more answers and interaction

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

If you're with tesco, you will have to change the access points settings. If they're wrong, no internet on 3g.
http://www.tescomobile.ie/priceplans/international/phone-settings.aspx

And you will need the data roaming as well. Hope this helps.

Hi Thanks for the reply
I THINK I go ti tright but still nothing outside wifi range.

Is this waht I was to input?

Android Settings
Go to Settings -> Wireless&Networks -> Mobile Networks and turn on Data Roaming
Go to Settings -> Wireless&Networks -> Mobile Networks and turn on Packet Data
Go to Settings -> Wireless&Networks -> Mobile Networks -> Access Point Names and delete all existing APN’s.
Create a new Internet APN with settings
- Name TMI Internet APN
- APN: tescomobile.liffeytelecom.com
- MCC: 272
- MNC: 11
- APN Type: default, supl
Sometimes for APN Type setting you are only allowed choose from a list. If so choose Internet or default.

vectra wrote:

Hi Thanks for the reply I THINK I go ti tright but still nothing outside wifi range.

I'm on Tesco on my ultra 6, didn't have to manually set it up. When I put in Sim first time Tesco texted me net settings which I clicked on. Data roaming had to be on though.

jaqian wrote: »

Someone asked recently if it supports USB OTG, I didn't treehouse it could but it defo works

On a separate note I smashed the screen, the glass is grand but the LCD underneath had cracks. Does anyone know how much to have it repaired and where? Thx

blimey thats one of my worries - I have had samsung galaxy phones before and of course if the screen cracked on that of course there would be no problem getting hold of a screen and fitting it or getting it fitted - but yeah what happens if the screen smashes on this VF SU6!! - especially some people are saying even the screen and dimensions of phone is different to that of the ZTE Blade 6 - sorry I dont have the info you require, good luck with getting it fixed.

CyberGhost wrote: »

My phone will not turn on anymore. I don't know what is going on, it started rebooting and now it's dead.

It hasn't been 7 days since I bought it from Vodafone, I was wondering if it's possible to return it?

If it's with in 14 days they will swap a faulty phone, assuming they have a replacement in stock or so I was told by staff in Blanchardstown SC recently.

CyberGhost wrote: »

My phone will not turn on anymore. I don't know what is going on, it started rebooting and now it's dead.

It hasn't been 7 days since I bought it from Vodafone, I was wondering if it's possible to return it?

You have 28 days to get it exchanged OR refunded if none in stock.

Thats Vodafone policy.

Hmmm, I went back to Vodafone store with 1 dead pixel on the screen, otherwise working fine. Box was open of course and managed to get a brand new replacement phone on the spot.

(The process took about 30 minutes but anyway...)